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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27072028">Love Languages</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghrelt/pseuds/Ghrelt'>Ghrelt</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>We Taught Ourselves to Love [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Love, Romance, Sappy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-09 00:48:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>377</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27072028</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghrelt/pseuds/Ghrelt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Each expresses his love in his own way.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>We Taught Ourselves to Love [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1830847</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>139</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Love Languages</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drake/gifts">Drake</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is for Drake.  I've been neglecting Joe and Nicky too long.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For Joe, it’s the scratch of a pencil on paper.  The perfectly captured curve of a cheek, or upturn of lips, or long fingers.</p>
<p>Dozens of sketchbooks down through the years.</p>
<p>Paintings.</p>
<p>Charcoal.</p>
<p>Even a couple disastrous attempts at sculptures.  (Nicky still has those, though he’s hidden them, lest Joe decide to destroy the evidence.)</p>
<p>Pages upon pages upon pages of the same face.  The same shoulders.  Hands.  Smile.  Eyes.  Feet.</p>
<p>Other… parts.</p>
<p>(Joe has to hide those for similar reasons.)</p>
<p>It’s in words of pure poetry that express better than words should be permitted to, in a dozen different languages.  Words that rend Nicky’s very heart from his body.  Or would if it was still his to possess.  Instead they’re said down into a beating heart held so carefully and surely in Joe’s infinitely capable, steady hands.</p>
<p>Joe is the poet.  The artist.  The one who’s good at expressing his feelings.</p>
<p>Nicky’s not.</p>
<p>Well.  He’d say he isn’t.</p>
<p>One man in particular would argue vehemently, how wrong he is on that count.</p>
<p>For Nicky it’s in counting bullets.</p>
<p>In handing Joe a new gun just as his last one runs out.</p>
<p>It’s in holding a pistol as he hands off an assault rifle.</p>
<p>In being alert and armed and already facing the danger when something wakes them in the night.</p>
<p>In sleeping with his arms around Joe.  On those nights he needs to be held more than he needs to be protected.</p>
<p>It’s in the simple phrases.  Not flowery words of metaphor.  Direct.</p>
<p>“The love of my life was of the people I was taught to hate.”</p>
<p>In simple acceptance of the inevitable. </p>
<p>“Everything dies.”</p>
<p>And simple belief in hope. </p>
<p>“We can do some good here.”</p>
<p>But honest, even in the face of all odds.  Insistent. </p>
<p>From the moment he mustered the courage to haltingly push out the words that very first time, he has not given Joe reason to doubt, even for a moment.</p>
<p>Though Joe knew.  Yusuf knew, well before he heard those treasured, stuttering words.  Nicolo is a man of action, and every gesture all but screamed it from the mountaintops.</p>
<p>Each expresses his love in his own way.</p>
<p>And each is perfect in love’s expression.</p>
<p>Especially in the eyes of his love.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Despite writing two multi-chapter Booker-centric fics, I have not abandoned this pairing.  Far from it.  I plan on writing them more in the future.  After I'm done the Booker/Keane fic.  (Stop making that face, I made Keane not a bad guy anymore.  Go check it out.)</p>
<p>Comments give me life.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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